Sunday, June 25, 2017

The directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Saturday arrested a real estate agent outside the Air Cargo Complex for allegedly smuggling gold and iridium through Hong Kong. According to DRI sources, the agency arrested Bala Murugan Pillai after it intercepted a cargo consignment, marked machine parts and crankshaft, carrying at least five kg of gold and 1.5 kg of powdered iridium.
“The goods, declared as machine parts and crankshaft, had landed in Air Cargo Complex, Mumbai, from Hong Kong via Colombo via Srilankan Airlines’ flight UL141. We have found that the three hollow cylindrical pistons inside the consignment where filled with foreign marked gold bars,” said a DRI official. The total value of the ‘smuggled’ gold and iridium is about Rs 1.7 crore, added the sources. Typically, iridium is a solvent added to gold, as impurity. There is no restriction on import of iridium in India. In this case, the DRI suspects that the iridium was brought along with gold at the behest of some city jewellers. The DRI is also scanning the Srilankan Airlines’ data from the last one year, to check if such consignments had been cleared in the past.
25/06/17 Khushboo Narayan/Indian Express